It must be the heat: This nominee drives 'em crazy

In the strange fight over the confirmation of John Roberts as the next justice of the Supreme Court, perhaps the strangest comment yet had to be the one from Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana on CNN's Inside Politics:

"You wouldn't run for the United States Senate or for governor or for anything else without answering people's questions about what you believe. And I think the Supreme Court is no different."

Huh?

Being nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States is no different from running for the United States Senate or a governorship or anything else?

And because a candidate for the Senate or governor is expected to tell us how he feels about some hot-button issue — like abortion, for example — we should expect a nominee for the Supreme Court to do the same?

Of course not.

Unlike a senator or a governor, a justice of the Supreme Court is sworn to do impartial justice. Which means he shouldn't even come close to prejudging issues that are likely to come before him.

Well, of course any senator has the right to ask any damfool question he wants to ask at a confirmation hearing, but that doesn't mean the nominee need be foolish enough to answer it. Indeed, a prudent nominee will find a judicious way not to. And surely Roberts, who's no slouch, will.

Because I have an idea that one of John Roberts' core beliefs is the independence and impartiality of the American judiciary.

The only thing Bayh's comment establishes beyond doubt is that being interviewed on television can make even the best of us sound wacky. Maybe it was just the heat. That would be the charitable explanation.

And again, maybe it just confirms what many of us suspect after listening to his hollow speech at the DLC last week. He might be just another empty suit.